We all know in when teaching science, one of the most important things we can teach to how to create and read graphs. It is just one of those things we need to incorporate regularly. I have not been as good this year as I have in the past, but I am just blaming 2020.
I create this after I gave my students a basic graphing worksheet about predator & prey populations and it was TERRIBLE. The point was to understand the relationship between predator and prey populations, but it turned out I needed to focus more on how to graph.
I’m not even exaggerating. The assignment clearly said LINE graph. I got mostly bar graphs. The ones that did line graphs made up data points, didn’t actually plot the data points, didn’t use different colors or differentiate the lines at all, and the list just goes on. Most left off titles and labels. One didn’t even have numbers. Out of the 4 classes that did this assignment, I had a total of 10 students do it correctly.
I know part of this is a student problem and some of them weren’t reading or thinking it through. However, if that many are doing something wrong, it is also a teacher problem. I decided to regroup and create this graphing assignment, which is very similar to the other. However, the instructions are step-by-step and put in a checklist format. So far, the results are much better.
There are questions on the back, which could easily be modified to have them write a conclusion instead. But, for what I wanted and our understanding of predator/prey populations, I’m good with the question format.
